| Popis: |
In 1988, the Austrian Federal Government initiated a bilateral programme with Russia with the aim of flying an Austrian Cosmonaut to the Space Station MIR to be accompanied by approximately 170 kg of Austrian developed and manufactured scientific/medical experiments. This cooperative effort, which reached its climax with the launch of the Austrian Cosmonaut Franz Viehbock with the crew of Soyuz TM-13 to the Space Station MIR on 2 October 1991, came to be known as the AUSTROMIR project. Due to the success of the mission, the quality of the experimental results, and the fruitful collaboration between Austrian and Russian researchers/scientists the Austrian Federal Ministry for Science Research (and Art) supported the founding of the Austrian Society for Aerospace Medicine (ASM) & Life Sciences. Since its inception and according to its founding mandate, ASM has striven to become the focal point for all Austrian activities in space medicine and space life sciences. Recently, under the management of ASM from the Austrian side, Austria has flown improved versions of all the major experiments from the AUSTROMIR project within the framework of the Russian National Space Program. This collaborative effort, referred to more commonly as the Russian Long-term Flight (RLF) Project, was centered around the Russian Physician Cosmonaut Valery V. Polyakov who broke the space endurance record with 437 days and 17 hours of spaceflight. The main goal of his mission was to investigate the effects of long-term spaceflight — especially weightlessness — on the human body. As a result of the AUSTROMIR Project, the RLF Project and their respective continuation phases, Austrian researchers/scientists have accumulated (in total) over 2 years of experimental data en long-term spaceflight. This means that Austria, in this specialized field, has attained a greater knowledge and experience than many of the larger space faring nations and agencies with respect to long duration spaceflight. This paper, by giving an overview of ASM, the AUSTROMIR and RLF projects, will focus on two main areas. First, how Austria is implementing the results and reaping the benefits from its space based experiments within terrestrial medical/clinical applications for the benefit of humanity. This will be highlighted by connecting the results from the Austrian space based experiments to terrestrial applications in the areas of radiation therapy, radiation protection, rehabilitation, and the early detection of cognitive disorders, etc. Secondly, the paper will demonstrate how Austria as a small nation with limited resources can actively, effectively and successfully participate in microgravity activities. |
